Authors Pick Books They Want to Give - Gifts for Readers

We asked some of our favorite authors which books they plan to give this season, and which they'd most love to get.

O, The Oprah Magazine | From the December 2009 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine

Photo: Ashley Gilbertson

PETER CAREY, True History of the Kelly Gang and the forthcoming Parrot and Olivier in America (April 2010)

I always want to give books by Richard Holmes. His Coleridge particularly. Now we have The Age of Wonder. It is history, biography, the Romantics, and science. It is also entertaining, well written, and generally improving. Who could ask for more than that? It is disgraceful that I haven't yet read E.L. Doctorow's Homer & Langley. If I am given a copy I'll pretend I bought it myself.